Microsoft to Expand its Healthcare AI Initiative in India

Microsoft will expand its footprint in India’s healthcare sector by bringing in artificial intelligence (AI) for cardiology. Microsoft has partnered with Apollo Hospitals to create an AI-focused network in cardiology. It will also expand its Microsoft Intelligent Network for eye care. The Apollo partnership, will work to develop and deploy new machine learning models to predict patient risk for heart disease and assists doctors in treatment plans. The team is already working on an AI-powered cardio API (application program interface) platform, adding that the AI network for healthcare aims to democratize AI by empowering healthcare providers with faster, intuitive, and predictable solutions and reducing the disease burden.

AI can be a great asset in improving healthcare services in India. For example, over a quarter billion people are visually impaired globally; 60 million of those people are in India. More than 80 percent of these clearly would have been avoided if they had been diagnosed and treated early. Microsoft had earlier tied up with LV Prasad Eye Institute to bring AI in the eye care sector. It obtained high images and medical outcomes of some 400,000 patients. The successful partnership with LV Prasad Eye Institute has motivated other top tier eye care organizations all around the world to join this kind of data. Heart disease is the next target area. The Microsoft partnership with Apollo will be a major step in the journey toward providing accessible healthcare to everyone.